Kind of Woman That'll Haunt You
by mooshymoomoo
Summary: Not long after becoming Supreme, Cordelia is wreck. Of course, she'd be the last one to admit it. Living in denial, everyone else can clearly see that she's more or less dead inside. Cordelia needs to face the source of her agony: Misty. Title from the Stevie Nicks song. M for later smut.
1. Shell

Cordelia awoke from another night of restless sleep. She couldn't even call it a night, in fact it was still dark. She fumbled around on the bedside table and checked the clock on her phone.

4:42 A.M.

She swore silently to herself. It was obvious to the Supreme that there was no point trying to go back to what she now knew as a version of sleep. It mostly involved jerking awake from half baked dreams she could never quite remember, and roughly every 20 minutes. Although she could never recall the events of her dreams, they always left her feeling what she could only describe as hollow. Dead. Where acid burns and scratches and scars had once resided on her face was now permanently taken over by dark circles. Not exactly the glowing health and vitality a Supreme was supposed to have. That worried Cordelia a considerable amount, but if she dwelled upon that nagging thought she only became more stressed. She somehow managed to subjugate it, keep it permanently out of mind.

Myrtle always imparted such abstract wisdom on Cordelia when she was younger, but one of her more concrete musings came to mind: If you can't sleep, then for God's sake at least do something productive with those stolen hours.

She disentangled the mess of sheets and blankets that wrapped her into a cocoon when she thrashed during frequent nightmares. Quite often she found them to be soaked through with sweat, even if it wasn't particularly warm in her room. Yet another effect of the ghastly nightmares. As she passed a full length mirror, she froze. Cordelia looked like a ghost of her former self- she was gaunt and emaciated. Her clothes no longer fit right, they all hung off of her. She practically swam in her pants, causing her to purchase several belts.

She had to tear herself away from the shell of a woman in the mirror before making her way downstairs. The longer she looked, the more she could feel the panic and anxiety rattling around in the box she had shut them away in, off in the back of her mind.

The house was still in the darkness.


	2. Mud

Cordelia was a mess and everyone knew it. Everyone except, perhaps, her. She always insisted she was fine. She wasn't tired, she wasn't hungry. If it wasn't one thing it was another. Any excuse to lift the attention from herself. Any way to make them stop looking at her like that. At each council meeting, Zoe and Queenie shared concerned looks whenever Cordelia wasn't facing them. They had discussed the possibility of having some kind of intervention, but… neither of them could ever bring themselves to mention it. The woman was practically falling apart and wouldn't allow anybody to help her.

Zoe was pretty sure she knew what was up. After seeing her headmistress's grief as she shook, sobbing with anger over the empty space in her arms... the space where Misty had been not a moment before... It wasn't hard for Zoe to put the pieces together. She really wanted to help Cordelia, but she knew it wasn't as simple as that. She couldn't even begin to imagine the amount of pain the Supreme was in. Quite frankly, Zoe was actually pretty impressed. Cordelia had been able to keep up a pretty successful front for awhile; no one had suspected anything to be wrong until her constant pleasant smile began to slip.

For the first few weeks it was easy enough for her to fool everyone. She flung herself into her work. As the newly realised Supreme, she had a coven to reclaim control of. When she had all of that to distract her, nothing seemed out of place. But, now the house was full, as well as two others in the same vicinity. The influx of new witches was dealt with and settled, and there weren't masses of people waiting outside the gates for Cordelia. Since she had made Miss Robichaux's Academy known through the media, the initial flow had petered off. She wasn't busy any more. Not like she used to be. The grand disillusionment of what had been boiling under the surface came as quite a shock to most of the academy's residents, but as is true of the nature of the human race, nobody pried.

Zoe had woken up when she heard someone tripping down the stairs to the greenhouse. There was a lip on the bottom of the doorframe that jutted out just enough that, if the lighting was wrong, would catch your heel every time. At just about five in the morning, the lighting happened to be very wrong, and the proceeding stumble made for quite a loud thump. Zoe was a light sleeper, so it didn't take much to rouse her. At this hour, she could only think of two people who could possibly be in the greenhouse- one of whom was currently (and for the foreseeable future) stuck in hell. This left only one suspect: Cordelia. Zoe was feeling pretty well rested, so she decided that now was as good a time as ever to talk to the Supreme- she wouldn't have a way to change the topic, no one to switch the attention onto. It'd just be the two of them. A time for honesty.

As she was rounding the corner to go downstairs, she heard a pot shatter. Following immediately after, an orchestra of profanity. She reached the greenhouse and was met by the sight of Cordelia hastily sweeping up terra cotta shards. She looked up at Zoe, confused and slightly embarrassed at being seen like this. She thought she'd be the only one awake.

"Zoe, why on earth are up so early?"

"Well Cordelia, I could really be asking the same of you." She paused before kneeling down to help her with the broken pot. "I heard you trip down the stairs, actually. You're sure you aren't hurt?"

"Of course, I'm fine." She replied with false assurance.

There it was again, Zoe thought. I'm fine. She doubted whether or not it was true, even though she couldn't see any scratches or bruised. She took a deep breath.

"No you're not." Zoe blurted out. Cordelia froze. She couldn't even look up from the mess.

"I… I'm… Zoe, I appreciate your concern but I'm positive I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do. Christ, Cordelia. You're up all hours of the night. You're barely eating. You're very clearly not 'fine', and we can all see that." Zoe whispered with exasperation.

Cordelia was still. Zoe could swear the supreme was holding her breath. She continued.

"Me and Quee- your fellow council members have made a decision. We will no longer let you live like this and aim to figure out what is wrong. If you won't let us help you, we're going to find a way." Stated Zoe, with quite a large amount of false authority. "You've changed." She added in a softer tone. When she looked down at her leader again, she was met by the empty gaze of her brown eyes. Zoe could see the full weight that maintaining a facade had put onto her. Cordelia's jaw was set, her body language putting forth an argument when her words could not. She resumed what she had been doing. She swept the pot into a bin and moved toward another cabinet, attempting to regain what little composure she had left in her. If there was anything that her mother had taught her, it was to never show weakness or admit defeat. Even if it meant driving away everyone important to you.

"Zoe, I really hate to be like this, but I am the Supreme of this coven and will be respected as such. I will not have you prying into my life or making decisions about it. Nothing has changed. I haven't changed. And that is all there is going to be to this conversation. Now, I think it would be best if you returned to your room now."

She simply kept digging through the cabinet, pulling out jar after jar in an attempt to organize. Zoe had no words. There was a lump in her throat. She didn't even recognize the woman in front of her any more. The words stung, regardless of the fact that she could see straight through them. Corner a wounded animal, and it will attack you.

Zoe turned to go. She took one more downward glance at Cordelia, and saw that she was slumped against the cabinet, cradling a jar filled with a thick, dark, brownish gray substance. She began trembling.

"Cordelia, what is that?" Zoe said, bending down. Cordelia starting shaking even harder, her reply coming out choked.

"Swamp… swamp mud." She breathed out. The sound of a human soul breaking. Cordelia's frail body was now bent in two, racked with sobs. She was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. All Zoe could do was hold her, try to pull her hair away from her face, wipe away the snot that was making it's way towards her mouth. She began hyperventilating and choking on her own spit. She wasn't in a position allowing any advantage to her lungs, and Zoe knew she had to do something before she was cleaning up her Supreme's vomit. As she dragged Cordelia to her feet to bring her outside for more air, the jar of mud tumbled to the ground and shattered. Mud went everywhere, including both witches' clothes.

Fuck honesty, Zoe thought. At least the lie wasn't quite so messy.


End file.
